Coincidence or terror?

TWO passenger jets, after taking off from the same airport, reach the safety of cruising altitude, then disappear from radar only three minutes apart and crash. Coincidence? It seems impossible. Yet so far there is no hard evidence of what caused the crashes on August 24th. Some witnesses report hearing one plane explode. The crew of the other sent a distress signal, but contrary to initial reports this was not a hijack alert. Until investigators have examined the remains and analysed the black boxes, Russia will be gripped by uncertainty.

It is a particularly painful uncertainty. If the cause was pilot error or mechanical failure—one theory blames the use of low-quality fuel—nobody will ever feel safe again in the elderly Tupolev aircraft that form the mainstay of Russia's domestic (and some of its international) fleet. The combined 89 deaths make these Russia's worst civil-aviation accidents in three years. But both planes, claim the airlines, were in good condition; and unprovoked accidents at cruising altitude are extremely rare.

If these were terrorist attacks, a different fear reawakens: that terrorism is once again leaving the confines of Chechnya. After the October 2002 rebel raid on Moscow's Dubrovka theatre, in which 120 or more hostages died after security forces pumped in gas before storming the building, a spate of bombings hit Moscow, including one on the metro that killed more than 40 people. There were fears of a concerted terrorist campaign, though many saw heightened security chiefly as an excuse for the police to extract more bribes.

But then the attacks subsided—until this week. The day before the crashes, a bomb exploded at a Moscow bus stop. If terrorists managed to slip through the security at Domodedovo, Russia's best-run airport, then Russians will wonder whether the impressive security trappings of what increasingly resembles a police state are worth anything at all.

Fears of terrorism have been stoked by the imminence of this weekend's presidential election in Chechnya. Aslan Maskhadov, a Chechen rebel leader, has said he was behind a daring raid in Ingushetia in June and that more was to come. But so far, neither Mr Maskhadov nor anyone else has claimed responsibility for the crashes. Even the authorities, usually quick to blame the Chechens for anything that smells of terrorism, are holding back. Russians must wait to learn the truth—though few believe the government will give it to them.